Which Texas private college presidents make more money than peers at Harvard and Yale?

According to an annual report on private university executive compensation by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 58 private college administrators — including five in Texas — earned more than $1 million in 2015.

As tuition and fees continue to rise for college students, so do the compensation packages for university executives.

According to an annual report on private university executive compensation by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 58 private college administrators — including five in Texas — earned more than $1 million in 2015. Using the most recent Internal Revenue Service forms available, the Chronicle calculated that average pay nationally for leaders who served a full year was almost $570,000, a 9 percent increase from 2014.

In Texas, the largest and most prestigious schools paid top dollar. Top executives at the state's three largest private schools — Baylor, Southern Methodist and Texas Christian — all earned over $1 million in 2015: $1,362,956 for Baylor's Ken Starr, $1,088,246 for SMU's R. Gerald Turner and $1,578,750 for TCU's Victor Boschini Jr.

David Leebron, the president at Rice University, the state's most selective college, received $1,730,998 in total compensation, the most of any school executive, public or private, in Texas.

One other Texas executive, St. Edward's President George Martin, hit the $1 million threshold, earning $1,397,470 in 2015, thanks to $880,000 in deferred compensation and other pay.

In 2015, Rice and TCU's top executives earned more than their counterparts at Yale, Harvard and Stanford.

When asked how its executive compensation structure is set and whether it felt the need to keep pace with other elite institutions around the country, Rice University declined to comment.

"Out of respect for the privacy of its employees, Rice does not discuss employees' salaries with the news media," said B.J. Almond, senior director of news and media relations.

In a prepared statement, Mark Johnson — the chairman of TCU's Board of Trustees — said Boschini's compensation was "based on information from research on national salary rates conducted by human resources as well as an evaluation of goals set for the chancellor."

"Dr. Boschini has continued to meet his goals, as evidenced by the successes of the university," Johnson said.

Michael Boone, chair of the SMU Board of Trustees, called Turner's pay a "very strategic investment" for the university -- pointing to SMU's growing stature over the past 22 years he has served as president, and his leadership during two gift campaigns, including a $1.15 billion effort -- the largest ever for a private university in Texas.

"We have a great deal of momentum thanks to Dr. Turner's leadership and look forward to more success in the future," Boone wrote in a statement.

As a general rule, private universities pay far more than public schools for their leadership. According to the Chronicle's salary data from the 2014-15 school year, only five public university administrators nationally made over $1 million.

Three of those five million-dollar public university executives were in Texas: Houston Chancellor Renu Khator, Texas A&M President Michael Young and UT System Chancellor Bill McRaven.

Baylor spokesperson Jason Cook said that his university does its best to balance two goals in setting compensation: attracting and retaining the "best-fit talent" for the school, and serving as "good stewards with institutional resources."

A compensation committee at Baylor does multiple reviews of the president's pay, Cook wrote in a statement, including a comparison of publicly available data within Baylor's peer group, looking at pay at the "second 50 group of schools on the U.S. News & World Report annual college rankings," and using an outside consulting group to analyze executive pay.

"Paying competitive and fair salaries, while not overcompensating executives, is the pay range within which we operate," Cook wrote.

It's worth noting that the three highest-paid private college employees weren't administrators, but football coaches. Then-Baylor head coach Art Briles earned $6.2 million in 2015, TCU's Gary Patterson made $3.9 million, and then-SMU coach Chad Morris made $2 million.